Temple case changed Arizona politics

Juror No. 3 still believes that Johnathan Doody is responsible for the murder of nine people in a Buddhist temple west of Phoenix in 1991.

"I sat through the whole thing in '93," Richard Noel told me. "We spent eight weeks going over that case and we were a diligent jury. We did our job."

It was a case that shocked the nation and launched the political career of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

When Noel heard Wednesday afternoon that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an 8-3 decision, had tossed Doody's confession from all those years ago, it filled him with mixed emotions.

"Although it has been 20 years since the crime, he needs to face the judge and jury again because we owe it to the victims," Noel said. "I feel that the outcome will be the same. The bottom line is that even if it is a hard pill to swallow if one believes in the justice system, you must also believe in the appeals system."

There is no more bizarre or tragic criminal case in Arizona history.

Six priests, a nun and two helpers were forced to stretch out on the floor of the Wat Promkunaram temple and were shot through the head.

The motive was robbery. Prosecutors say that Doody, then 17, and his friend Alessandro "Alex" Garcia, borrowed a friend's rifle for the stick-up. They supposedly thought that there was a large cache of gold at the temple.

Instead, the pair got away with $2,650 in cash and some electronics.

At the trial, Garcia testified against Doody, saying his pal didn't want to leave any witnesses. Doody admitted to being at the robbery but said that Garcia was the shooter.

Doody's confession came after spending 13 hours with interrogators.

The Appeals Court justices didn't believe that Doody had been adequately informed of his rights, particularly in light of what had previously occurred with the Temple case.

Before Doody and Garcia were arrested, Maricopa County sheriff's deputies had accused four Tucson men of the crime, only to find out later that the men had offered false confessions after hours of relentless questioning.

The 9th Circuit judges first tossed out Doody's confession in February of last year but were ordered by the Supreme Court to reconsider that decision.

In their majority ruling this time around, judges said that Doody's confession was the result of "an extraordinarily lengthy interrogation of a sleep-deprived and unresponsive juvenile under the relentless questioning for nearly 13 hours by a tag-team of detectives, without the presence of an attorney and without the protection of proper Miranda warnings."

In the wake of Wednesday's ruling, the Arizona attorney general will have to decide whether to take the case to the Supreme Court again or to kick it back to the county attorney, who could retry the case.

"It's strange how something like this goes on and on," Noel said. "You never think that when you're called for jury duty. The world goes on and we've all been doing so many other things for nearly 20 years and still the case could end up back in court."

Time works against prosecutors in such cases. People die. Memories fade. According to Noel, however, there was plenty of evidence to convict Doody.

"We didn't base our decision only on that confession," he said. "There were plenty of other factors that we weighed. Enough, I think, for him still to be convicted, although it will be more difficult now after so much time has passed."

The initially botched investigation of the Temple murder case got Arpaio elected to his first term. Arpaio entered the race for sheriff as a former DEA agent and administrator who promised to restore the Sheriff's Office's credibility and reputation. In that sense, the Temple murder case not only launched his career but dramatically altered the course of Arizona politics.

"This case changed a lot of things," Noel said. "No one could have known that at the time. Or that it would go on. Still, it's like I said, if you believe in the justice system you have to believe in the appeals system. But you can't help but feel bad in one way. As I've said before, there is no appeal for the victims. All we can do is hope they rest in peace."